I don't know how much more clear I can make this. They aren't pulling the trigger. You are. They are tempting you to take their life, sure, but it's not like you don't have a choice. YOU pull the trigger. You always have a choice, and it's in that choice that you either take responsibility for their life or not. You make it seem as if you lose the ability to control yourself if threatened. If that's the case, you have no business with a weapon. If that's not the case, you're wrong and have proven my point.

And taking away the use of an automatic rifle deprives you of that option?

Will, now your pacifism is bordeline unrealistic. If bad guy is swinging a 6 inch knife towards my chest, I can make the choice to just stand there and die? Or take a greater risk of injury and use non-lethal self defense? I'm sorry my friend, but that's just plain lunacy. It's completely ridiculous to place the onus of their death on me because they tried to kill me first.

Taking away the use of ANY weapon deprives me of my choice for the best defensive weapon for any given situation.

There's no such thing as a 'bad guy'. There are people. If someone is swinging a 6 inch knife at your chest, you can stand still, fight, run, or you can shoot him. Those are your choices. What if, in yet another in the long line of hypothetical situations, there is an unknown accompliace with a gun? If you fight back, he's less likey to shoot to avoid friendly fire. If you run, you're not as much of a threat, AND you're a moving target. If you open fire, he shoots you and you die. 2 people die when no one needed to die. Stop trying to dodge the responsibility of owning and intending to use a gun, and stop pretending it's your only defence.

It's not an issue of clarity; I, for one, understand you very well. But if somebody attacks me with deadly force, they have made the choice for me. It's not my business to defend myself with inferior tools when they have thrust that choice upon me. When they do that, I no longer value their life, because it is clear that they do not value mine. At that point, the situation has ALREADY sunken to levels it should never reach, and it's the best I can to come out alive. Using non-lethal force, worrying about property damage, etc, etcis a luxury I don't have time to worry about when looking out for #1.

So yes, I pull the trigger. Yes, they tempt me. Let me repeat that; they tempt me to take their life, and I'm going to take them up on their offer. Simple as that. Whether it's a gun, a knife, my car, or anything else. That's secondary. If they survive, that's secondary as well, as long as I (and those I'm trying to protect) make it. The training for carrying concealed weapons usually involves applying force until the threat is gone. So no, the goal is not to kill or maim or injur. The goal is to STOP THE THREAT, and this is about where the discussion turns religious, so I'd rather just shake hands and call it good. We're not going to agree on whether it's right or wrong to take a life to save your own. We're not going to agree on whether non-lethal defense tools are effective or not.

30 years from now, when we have multi-shot taser guns with a range of 30 yards plus where you don't have to rewind the wires for every bad guy, things'll be different. Until you no longer have to squirt a puny stream of kitchen spices into an attacker's eyes, it'll be easier to pump him full of lead anywhere in his filthy carcass.

Dodge the blame all you like, you pull the trigger. You make the decision. Which is exactly why military grade weaponry should become readily available to citizens. If a host of people try to break into my house and kill me, I'd feel alot better knowing I have H&K GRM2 grenade rifle and a Mirage AT23 portable minisile launcher behind my couch. Right?

Ok.

1) you stand still = you die.
2) you fight (unarmed) = you die (especially if he has a 6" knife and an accomplice)
3) you run = a good plan most of the time
4) you shoot him = he dies (and you ONLY possibly die if he has an accomplice)


That's about how I see it. Now toss into that mix all the people who couldn't run. Your grandmother, kids, the disabled, hell even your mother. I can outrun my mother if I'm running backwards. Run those choices by them and see which is the better fit.:thumbsup:

Your making alot of assumptions.

NO, I do NOT!! I would avoid it if at all possible. It's NOT my choice to be attacked. Sure, it's my choice (nah, it's my human right, actually) to defend myself. And it IS your choice; nobody is forcing you to. If you want to carry around a shotgun filled with bean bag rounds, just try it.:lol:

Okay, let's break this down. Someone is coming at you with a knife. There are only a few reasons someone would do this: theft, feeling threatened, assault, and madness. The first two would mean that if you stood still, you'd be fine. The second and third would be toss ups, maybe you'd be fine, maybe you wouldn't. Either way, it's an option.
If the guy had several years of martial arts training and his buddy was a hell of a shot, maybe. If not, no way, Jose. I'd have no problem disarming most people, and at most might get a cut on my outer forearm. I take responsibility for myself by being trained in martial arts in case I ever need it. Odds are, I live.
I run, I LIVE, you mean.
What is it with you people and thinking it's okay to kill people? "Oh help me! My life is in danger! Whoa is me! I need a weapon of massive power to feel safe!" You don't need a gun to be safe. You need to feel safe without a gun to be reasonable.
All the people who can't run can have mase or a taser. Probem solved. Non-lethal weapons are legal pretty much everywhere and run an infantesimal risk of fatility.

You have just made it very clear that if your life is threatened, you will not look to an alternative to shooting someone. I mean why bother trying not to kill someone if you feel that you have no choice but to kill if you feel threatened? It's a way to release all guilt, but guilt is a necessary human emotion. It keeps you from commiting immoral acts.

I'm not arguing that you don't have the right to defend yourself. Neither is Ch'i. No one is. Defend yourself if you are in danger. Just don't go Rambo and kill everyone.

so I turn and run, he chases me down and STILL kills me, or I fight back and he STILL kills me. great choices. The gun is my BEST defense. Intending to USE it in defense is certainly not a responsibility i'm dodging.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

deciding to live is dodging blame?
sure, if you want to take your family out in the ensuing explosion. An automatic weapon, or shotgun, would be ideal though, especially if THEY had an illegal automatic. How many people, cops included, would have liked to have had an automatic weapon during the north hollywood shootout?

what a load of crap.
A gun doesn't make me feel safer, it is the BEST tool of self defense for me. Like it is for ALOT of people that aren't as good at hand to hand as YOU are.

Your gun if the BEST way to kill someone. Your best defence isn't an offence, it's a defence. We've covered this before. Killing someone is offensive.

Tear gas. Why do you always want to kill everyone?

you're wrong. I understand that this is your point of view, but it's wrong. sometimes you are left with absolutely no option.


Tear gas for the shootout? so instead of semi-controlled bursts of auto fire you want random, no damn idea where my bullets are going, shots going all over the place?

Or you turn to run and the killer is hit by a car, or your killer runs out of ammo, or you trip over a cat and chip your tooth. Stop speculating on what might happen.

Don't change the context. You were both arguing that someone attacking you leaves you no choice but to shoot them. That they deprive you of your choices and, therefor, make the decision for you. This is simply not true and is rejecting responsibility for your (yes your) decision to pull that trigger. You can't assume that not firing on someone to defend yourself equates to death.

No, you're wrong. See how pointless that is? In a debate you're supposed to prove why you're right.

How many North Hollywood Shootouts happen in your neighborhood?

There's always an option. I'm not saying one option is necessarily better than another, but there's always an option. I know people who would choose to die rather than kill someone who's attacking them. I'm not one of those people, but they exist.

Look: if attacked with lethal force in a circumstance where retreat was impossible, I would probably respond with the minimum force I deemed necessary to stop the attack, and I wouldn't be too concerned if that level of force was lethal. But to say that's not a choice on my part is just irresponsible. Nobody forced me to respond that way, not even the person who is attacking me. I always have the say over my actions, no matter what the circumstances are. I quit pretending that other people made me do things when I was 12 years old.

Many of you have made that choice in advance, and good for you. It's smart to have any qualms you have about that worked out before you find yourself in that situation. But let's not pretend that's not a choice you're making. In many cases, people in this thread have chosen that they will take another person's life. I'm not saying it's unjustified or wrong--just that you have to face and come to terms with the choice you're making there. Personally, I don't think I could choose that action in advance, but that's why I'm me and you're you.

I don't play the odds. If you threaten my life, or that of my family, you take yours into your own hands.

I did.

hopefully it will never happen, but i'm up a shit creek without a paddle if it ever does and I have nothing to use for defense, aren't I?

That sounds really cool in movies, but it has no real life meaning. Again (and again and again), they aren't pulling the trigger. You are. They are tempting you to take their life, sure, but it's not like you don't have a choice. YOU pull the trigger. You always have a choice, and it's in that choice that you either take responsibility for their life or not. You make it seem as if you lose the ability to control yourself if threatened. If that's the case, you have no business with a weapon. If that's not the case, you're wrong and have proven my point.

In conclusion, when you have a gun, you take other people's lives in to your hands, usually without permission. No one made you go buy a gun and carry the thing around (though a criminal making you buy a gun for defence at gunpoint would be very ironic).
Not hardly. You made a Rambo argument (the "don't fuck with me or I'll go midevil" argument), then you repeated it.
But what about bird flu? You're more likely to get bird flu than to be involved in or even be near a cop/criminal shootout of the kind that was at that Hollywood shootout, therefore you should be ready for bird flu, THEN you should be ready for a shootout (the "prioritize the most likely" argument).

dksuddeth, baring military service, you'll never be in a shootout. I can say that with certianty. The "but what if" arguments are so statistically improbable that they become laughable, espically those of the armed-home-invasion-when-you're-home or massive-drawn-out police/well-armed-criminal-shootout persuasion. You won't need your gun. I wouldn't need a gun if I had one. Ch'i wouldn't need a gun if he had one. Because you'll never need your gun, you'll want to use it to excuse your having it. That's kinda dangerous. Combine that with the Rambo mentality, and you've got a recipe for 'accedenal death', 'involuntary manslaughter', or 'criminal neglegence'.

No, it isn't. Guns are manufactured with one aim in mind. Killing. Motive is not considered at the factory. The designers don't sit around and say "I'm making a self defense tool that a good-hearted soul can use to stop the bad man from getting him." They think only about how to make the gun a better and more efficient killer. Period.

Nothing wrong with that - considering a gun is SUPPOSED to kill things, you'd expect the guy designing it to be thinking along those lines. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking guns are designed for self defense. They're not, any more than they're designed for murder. They're designed to kill. What, or who, the user decides to kill is immaterial as far as the "reason" for the gun.

I don't think anyone here has said guns should not or legally cannot exist (although wouldn't it be nice if there were NO guns ANYWHERE?) I certainly don't think anyone is foolish enough to think we can get rid of all the guns in the world. In fact, although I despise hunting, I have no problem with people having rifles and whatever else you're supposed to have when you kill Bambi. I don't even want to take your gun away.

But just because I don't want to take away your gun doesn't mean I think you have a *constitutionally guaranteed* right to it.

Why not? If she's like the average person she has just as much training in hand to hand combat as she does in armed combat. Namely, damn near none.

Lemme just ask you this question, from a self defense standpoint, all arguments about whether you have the right to a gun or not aside. Do you really think it's wise to rely so heavily on one weapon? Guns are not perfect. They do jam, misfire, etc. Is it really a good defense strategy to base your survival on the functioning of a gun?

I tend to tell my students to diversify. Carry the knife (if you know how to use it *and* keep the other guy from getting it, otherwise if you carry it you're a moron), but also be very well versed in empty hand.



couple of problems here. First off, eliminate those problems. Go learn how to fight. Second, if you're getting the crap kicked out of you by a guy who has no weapon, and you shoot him, you WILL go to jail, and it probably will be for a very long time. Are you willing to take that risk?


I don't think Jesus would advocate that everyone carry a gun.

And if we were more tactless we'd challenge your assumption that god even exists, and when you couldn't prove that we'd ask you to come up with a better argument.


I'd like to see some stats for that last sentence please. Also I'd like you to compare apples to apples here. The DEATHS from defensive use of guns as compared to the deaths that happen by criminal use of guns. No trying to exclude crooks who can't shoot. I feel I must point out that we WILL catch you when you try to jimmy with the statistical language.

And yes, the gun is quite relevant. You don't hear about a whole lot of drive by stabbings. The gun is relevant because it allows you to kill from a distance. The crook can be 10 feet away and still kill me. I'm not comfortable letting a potential enemy (or ally who's a crappy shot) get hold of a weapon that can kill from far enough away that I don't have a chance of stopping it.

That is how you see it. I do not. You have as much of a chance of convincing me that your view is correct as I do of convincing you that mine is correct.

Nothing 'rambo' about it. It's just the way it is. I'm not a tough talk, no walk kind of person. I mean exactly what I say, when I say it.

You can see in to the future? Never say that you're certain about anything but your own eventual death (unless you're immortal) and that you'll pay taxes.

I'm sure that every unarmed victim of violent crime would argue that point with you.

This is not true. There are many cases where an unarmed attacker has been shot/killed and no charges were filed against the shooter. Now, in some states in this country, what you say would hold true, but these are some of the worst states when it concerns crime anyway because they do everything possible to keep their citizens from carrying.


Jesus, or God, wanted everyone to be able to defend themselves. "And let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one."
..........Luke 22:36


If I remember correctly, the 30k+ gun death stat includes defensive uses as well, so it would be difficult to post the two seperate stats up here. Maybe someone has researched enough to come up with two different stats. I don't know. In the link below, there is a study that 'estimates' about 2.5 million defensive uses a year, with a gun, but doesn't denote how many are deadly uses or deterrent uses.
I've posted this link before, but there is a new one up since then. I encourage everyone to read it. http://gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/...s4-1-Print.pdf

If there is another way to stop criminals from having guns, other than locking them away for life, I'd love to hear it. So far, no law ever written has accomplished this feat. So when the criminal is shooting at you from a distance, I fail to see how any other defensive action is going to help other than shooting back.

There are cases where people have won lawsuits because they spilled coffee on themselves too. The statistically deviant cases do not indicate that you will stay out of jail.

Wisconsin lets you carry guns all you want. Hell, it's legal for blind people to hunt there. But there are places in Milwaukee that I wouldn't want to go into during the day.


Your trouble here is that the bible loves to contradict itself.

"“Seek peace, and pursue it. (Proverbs 34:14)”"




Not good enough. Point us to real stats.

Statistics compiled by a pro gun group are by nature going to paint guns in a favorable light. You need a balanced analysis from a neutral group.


Again, if I legally own a gun and a criminal steals it from me, that's another gun in the hands of a criminal. If I can't legally own an assault rifle, then I can't be the conduit through which the criminal gets ahold of it.

Convince? It's reality. You pull the trigger. I'm not telling you opinion, I am stating fact. It's a fact that you pull the trigger.
So did Rambo. The idea isn't that you don't back up what you say. More frighteningly, it's that you do backup what you're saying, namely that if you're attacked you have no choice but to shoot to kill.
Sorry, but I know enough about statistics to say something with certianty. It's the same as if I were to say that you'll never be killed by lava in NYC. It's so statistically improbable, that stating it's impossible is a safe statement.
You mean the one in a million? You might as well argue that we should all wear latex gloves and take daily doses of antibiotics to avoid flesh eating bacteria. Yes, some people get flesh eating bacteria, but taking steps to avoid something so rare is nuts.
I've already given you one: sale and distribution tracking to crack down on the source of ilelgal weapons.

And when a criminal is shooting at you from a distance, duck.

Will, I like what you say here, it is very reasonable and I think a good point that everyone on all sides of the debate can agree on. However, I would just like to add, please don't assume that all gunowners are hell bent on going Rambo or does it mean that gunowners are automatically going to go out and kill everyone. I think that's where the debate keeps breaking down.

Guns aren't the end all be all. Just because someone chooses to use a gun as their weapon of choice for self-defense, does not automatically mean "shoot to kill". Same for any weapon. If someone is using a sword, kitchen knife etc as defense it would still be pretty gruesome if not more so.

A gun doesn't have to kill, it just has to stop or incapacitate the attacker. I feel better knowing my mom and grandma have small guns in their purse for defense rather than some hunting knife (hypothetically speaking- assume they are properly trained).

I was actually speaking of the insurgency. The initial war was an unqualified success. The last few years have been anything but.

Most Iraqis have 1 rattle-trap Ak sitting on top of their dresser, not the vast arsenal you suppose. Americans have the same access to IEDs as the Iraqis (thats why they are called improvised).

The citizens of this country, if properly motivated, would do exactly what the Iraqis are doing now with out the added distration of having to fight the other two factions in the country at the same time.

A few "dinks" with popguns (Vietcong ring a bell?) does not adequately describe the 25% of Americans who own firearms. You also assume (incorrectly) that the military of this country would just gleefully and unquestioningly go about killing it's own citizens in the defense of a regime corrupt enough to incite a rebellion.

No, he'll just get one that is smuggled into the country from Whereverstan, and you will have no recourse when he is shooting it at you other than to say, "Hey, that's illegal!"

When they wrote the constitution what type of guns do you think they were refering to? They never cited "just hunting rifles" or "just single shot guns" or even "guns that can have another purpose besides killing a person" they said ARMS. Arms as in weapons. A hunting rifle is a tool, used to kill game so that you can eat. A weapon is something to be used in a contest of force. A weapon's sole purpose is to kill, maime, wound, whatever you are fighting.

As a reminder, the people that created this law, were not Frontiersmen or anything of the sort. How much hunting do you think went on in "the wilds of Boston" or the "Dark Forest of Philadelphia"? The rest of the Consitution was written to anticipate and adapt to change. I see no reason why they did not also expect weaposn technology to develope beyond the means they had back then. These were also people that had just survived a lenghty war. I'm quite sure they knew the grizzly reality of musket balls tearing into human flesh. Yet they still chose the word ARMS as in Weapons not as in hunting tools.

So to ban assualt rifles becuase their sole purpose for existance is to kill or injure people, is absurd.

Will, you've said yourself that your mind is a weapon, and from what you've told us so far, are you sure you're California-Legal? I mean, you should at least have to register yourself and be required to lock your hands up at night.:lol:

All joking aside, your reasoning is sound... for somebody who could kick Chuck Norris's butt blindfoldedhttp://www.cis.gvsu.edu/~radur/icon_204.gif

But seriously, your views are not really valid for I'd say 85% of the population, depending on where you go. Sure, in sunny hip Cali, you might find lots of joggers and yuppies who practice martial arts, but not that's the exception. I'm sorry, but put most people in a fight with a knife-wielding attacker or two, and they're gonna shit themselves. I wouldn't put any money on them. So yeah, you confidently say "No way, Jose." That's GREAT. I'm not as confident in my abilities, so I'll be happy if I can pull out that steel and squeeze away.

And sure, you can give in to their demands, but who's to say that'll placate them? How far do you go with their demands? Where do you draw the line? That's how 100's of people sit quietly in a plane as it's rammed into a building. That attitude isn't an option for me.

And you guys go on and on about "boo hoo, why kill the poor criminal" with absolutely no regard for the safety of ordinary folks. As I get over that churning feeling in my stomach, lemme put you in the role of an average thug, getting ready to decide which of two houses to rob. If you knew fairly certainly that one house had a few guns in it and the inhabitants trained, while the other didn't, which house would you break into? It's that simple. People are scared to die. They don't have to die to be affected by that fear. Think of it like training. They hear of a bunch of their buddies getting iced, they shit themself and give up. At least if they're smart. Uping the stakes more is hardly worth it for pocket change.

Peppers are for food, not a weapon. A pair of $5 snorkel goggles is as good as armor against pepper spray. Add some thick winter clothing and a taser is going to be marginal at best. When you have an inexpensive tool that can engage multiple threats, possibly at range, fit in my hand, and is easily concealable, let me know.

Also, I don't see where you guys are going with whole "choice" thing. Sure, I pull the trigger. Great. So what? If a dumpster comes rolling at me down a hill, stepping out of the way is a choice. Everything is a choice. My choice will always be one that puts me on top the easiest, so for me, it's not really a choice. If there was an "Easy Button" like in the Staples ad, I'd use that instead of the gun. Really.

Steel kills. How do you feel about mse or a taser?
When criminals star sporting speedo goggles during hold=ups, then pepper spray will no longer be a valuable tool. Until then it's good both on eggs and as a deterrant and a way to neutralize a threat. As someone who has been tased, let me tell you that a thick pair of jeans and a leather jacket won't protect you at all. Unless the guy is wearing a rubber diving suit (are you heald up by divers?), you'll be fine with a taser. Pepper spray is quite cheap, and tasers are damned effective. BTW, tasers are comparably priced to guns, so the price argument is a bit moot.
The choice is non-lethal force vs. lethal force.

Well I'm damn glad non-lethal force was used in THIS situation, otherwise somebody might have gotten seriously hurt. :rolleyes:

I'd like to point out that these girls are implementing NON-VIOLENCE. Let's see if it worked, shall we?

Ok, so non-violence didn't work. The alternate plan was to run, you say?

Dial a prayer, the ultimate in societal protection, the reason we don't need guns anymore. The police will save us, isn't that what's always being said?

Yes, non-lethal hand to hand, the preferred method of the pacifist, as a last resort to an assault. What? he used a skateboard? Doesn't he know that those are used for skating, and not as a weapon? Shame shame.

Aggressors will not commit more violence if they're not threatened, right? anyone? bueller?

so much for being able to dial 911 anymore, not that it helped much before.

All this serious bodily injury because people think it's 'civilized' to be unarmed and defenseless, or to be a pacifist and employ non-violent/non-lethal methods and force. It is a choice, after all.

If one decent person had been there with a gun, these girls would not have been this seriously injured and had their lives traumatically altered, but of course I'm sure I'll hear about all the innocent bystanders that would have then been shot or the lone person sitting outside the group waiting to defend the assaulting mob from anyone with a gun, cause he's clairvoyant like that.

As I've said, sometimes lethal force is the only option left to stay alive or to avoid serious injury.

There are such things as bad guys. There are bad people. I'm very happy for you that you have been fortunate enough not to meet any. They exist.
It is also statistically unlikely to the point of near impossibility that while working in a daycare I will have to perform CPR (not first aid, actually I'm very likely to need to use first aid). I still stay current on my training for both first aid and the extemely unlikely CPR. The idea being, I know I'm not likely to need it, but what if I do? It's good to have.

I don't care who you are and what side of the gun control issue you happen to be on, surely we can all agree that blind people USING guns is pretty stupid, dangerous, and unnecessary? I mean how well regulated or trained either one can you be if your militia consists of blind snipers?

I included both quotes there because otherwise the context of what will is saying is totally lost. I'm reading this to mean that in your mind Will, there almost no chance of an unarmed person being the victim of a violent crime. Please if I'm mistakenly interpreting this post correct me. Otherwise, I would LOVE to see some figures on that one.

I'm pretty sure someone out there is wondering where the consistancy is in my posts. I am the kind of person whose personal views tend to piss off people on both sides of every major issue. I believe in LIMITED control.

I am considered by people in my community to be in favor of gun control. I think we do need to control who has guns. The purpose of a gun is to kill, maim, or at least injure. It is important that those we allow to own these weapons have some basic skills. I dont see how we can justify the need to prove ability to drive before we legally allow someone to drive, yet we do not require that people prove they have the ability to use a gun before allowing them to own a gun. Our constitution does not provide for the use of guns by mad men and blind people. These people, by the nature of their disability, are not able to be part of a 'well regulated' militia, regardless of how you interpret the word regulated.

That said, I'm also very much against letting the government have to much control. I don't really see a way to balance these things out, except to say that when it comes to protecting health and life of innocents the government must be asked to intervene with laws and restrictions, and at all other times they must be kept from intervening.

But notice... in the face of evidence and statistics, what you've got is an anecdote. A very unfortunate one, to be sure, but it's anecdotal nonetheless. The statistics Will is referring to account for incidents like this one.

This indicates the main tool the gun lobby has: scare tactics. Booga booga, buy a gun or you might get beat down. Never mind that hardly anyone actually gets beat down--it's so bad for the ones that DO, that we should all be strapped at all times.

I admit, it has a certain kind of logic, in a sad, sick way.

The article fails to mention the 300 million other times that DIDN'T happen that day in this country alone. Posting articles is kinda useless in this case, because they don't write articles about when people aren't assaulted. Did you notice none of the young women assaulted were carrying mase or tasers?

Xera, seriously, there are no such things as "bad guys". Everyone has motives and though processes, and sometimes they can do very bad things, but there is no such thing as a 'bad guy'. The term conjures up Hanz from Die Hard ot Darth Vader. Those are archetypes, not full personalaties. And CPR prevents death, while guns cause death.

If you do very bad things and hurt people for fun, you are a bad person. Even Darth Vader had his motivations, and pretty decent ones for all of that, but he was a bad guy, and so are real people sometimes. A bad guy is someone that enjoys hurting people. They exist.

I don't care if it's preventing death, or protecting one's self from harm, by whatever means a person finds they need to, if you need something and don't have it because it was unlikely you would need it, your screwed. Unless of course it was a condom you needed, in which case your probably NOT gonna be screwed.

but isn't saving the life of 'just one child' enough?
mace, in this instance, wouldn't have done much against 10-25 people. A taser would have done less, considering it's a one shot deal. The ONLY thing that would have stopped this in it's tracks would have been the possibility of being killed by a bullet.

I guess Charles Manson and Ted Bundy were just misguided?

Mase would have neutralized everyone had it been used. Also, have you ever seen mase pulled on someone? They tend to back off in fear of the weapon. The same effect you attibute to a gun could be attributed to mase, and mase won't kill anyone.
Misguided? No. Mental illness comes from genetics and environmental sources, something hard to blame the killers for. As I said, no such thing as bad guys, as bad guys are fictional.

Will, I sang the marines hymn in the CS gas chamber during boot camp....without a gas mask. Mace is some strong stuff, but it's not all powerful and not effective in a crowd....at least with the small canisters they allow civilians to carry.

rose colored glasses much?

Please read my posts before responding.
You might have to explaing this one.

I read your posts. Mace would NOT have neutralized everyone. To even think that a civilian sized can of pepper spray is going to neutralize a crowd of 25 people is overestimating the effectiveness of pepper spray. At most, you'll get 2, maybe 3 people before the rest mob you.

you say there are no bad people, only bad thoughts, motives, and processes, or you blame it on genetic anomolies or mental illness. This is 'rose colored glasses' for your refusal to see that there are evil people in the world that don't care about you, your wife, or your daughter and will have no problem at all causing all sorts of harm to achieve an objective, if you are the target. These kinds of people are bad people.

I think Will is saying, and please forgive me if I'm putting words in your mouth here Will, that people are just people and some do bad things but that makes for bad actions not bad people.

I tend to disagree, believing that if you do enough bad things you are a bad person.

I understand, I think, what his point of view is and why he feels that way, I personally just think he's wrong. I think it is that attitude which allows people to deny responsibility for their own actions and I think it is one of the major downfalls in modern society but that is a different debate.
[/thread jack]

I have no more wish to understand, negotiate with, or in any way accomodate sociopathic predators; nor more than I wish to accomodate or understand a rabid wolfhound. I may pity their condition, I may even comprehend their motives. I understand the mechanism of Rabies, after all; that doesn't mean that I allow rabid animals to live.

At the risk of sounding sociopathic myself, I hold the two to be roughly equivalent. A rabid dog, as cute and friendly as he may once have been, needs to die. Right now. Friendly once or not, -NOW- that dog is a potentially lethal threat. Friendly as he was at 5 or 10 years old, a gangbanger, burgaler, or other sociopathic criminal (to say nothing of the REAL nasties, as mentioned above) a potentially violent criminal is a potentially lethal threat, and the response should be identical. I have no qualms about killing someone who, for all I know, is a few seconds away from killing -me- instead. If this individual is carrying or brandishing a weapon, he is threatening my life. Period. I decided, a long time ago, that people who threaten the lives or persons of myself, my family, or my friends -also- need to die. Someone who is so mentally disturbed, so socially and morally unhinged as to feel justified in threatening someone's life in exchange for that other persons' compliance or their property, is no longer fit to live among decent people. I'd be happy if they all went away somewhere (Coventry, maybe?), but since they never have and never will, I simply plan on removing any that are dumb enough to come into my circle, as it were. I don't go looking for them; in fact I go to great lengths to avoid them. However, if they come looking for me, they are in for a very nasty and probably very brief surprise. If they were to run away (hopefully "scared straight") when I drew my weapon, I would do a giddy little Happy Snoopy Dance. The best solution is -always- that the bad guy runs away. But if he hangs around after the gun is drawn, he's just committed the terminal error of being both mean and double-stupid. That kind of idiocy doesn't fly in nature, and it won't fly with me. I am not food, and I will not be eaten.

The problem with assuming that a criminal will let you live if you run/comply/resist w/out a gun is this: you don't know if you will be allowed to live until you're home, behind a locked door. The bad guy might decide to off you at any time; nervousness, an itchy finger, or "just 'cause I felt like it" have all been proffered as the motive for otherwise random shootings in the past. I can be reasonably sure I'll survive the encounter when the former mugger is either running away (the usual, and hoped-for result) or dead on the ground (a much rarer occurance).

Finally, as for statistics:
http://www.jpfo.org/data-docs.htm (It's safer by FAR to resist with a firearm; citations provided.) The 2-3 bits you want about about ten lines down the page.

Edited to add:
"One in a million!" is cold comfort to the person with the misfortune to be the One in question.